PARENT: FLYERS: Mason's arrival could mean the end for Bryz

PHILADELPHIA — It’s safe to say Ilya Bryzgalov is never going to be that guy in the locker room who organizes team parties. He’s not exactly a human welcome wagon there, and doesn’t seem to feel the need to make friends, especially with other Flyers goalies.

He’s not an albatross, either, even if he’s been portrayed at times as a pretty weird bird.

Yet just as Bryzgalov was handling the rare gatekeeper role on the Flyers bench as an important game against the Islanders was commencing Tuesday night, he took the unusual step of saying that this new goalie guy Steve Mason that was stepping in for him is ... “a nice guy,” Bryzgalov said.

Alert the media.“He’s a pretty young goalie,” Bryzgalov added. “His whole career is in front of him. He’s only 24.”

Young enough to be a starting goalie. Good enough to be one, too, as he proved a few years ago.

But this nice young man Steve Mason makes a lot less money than veteran Ilya Bryzgalov, and next season he’ll make even less. It’s quite possible that Mason’s paychecks will wind up having a lot to do with the way Bryzgalov might go from having a rare Flyers game day off to spending every one of them next season in a different uniform. It’s probably not a stretch to figure this Mason start against the Islanders shaped up as a potential first step toward whether or not that scene plays out.

That isn’t going to change the way Bryzgalov feels, however.

“We’re just employees here,” Bryzgalov said after a morning practice at Nassau Coliseum Tuesday. “We have front office, coaches’ office who make the decisions about the lineups. ... You come to the locker room, they tell you you’re out. You can’t do anything about it. You have to accept it or what are you going to say?”

When it come to his future, Bryzgalov has acknowledged several times this shortened season that he knows all about the compliance buyout (or amnesty) clause which could wind up paying Bryzgalov a lot of money to change teams this summer or next.

It’s tough to say the Flyers aren’t getting their money’s worth with him right now. Even with sitting out the start of this game against the Isles, Bryzgalov started 36 of his team’s 39 games this season. Little wonder, then, that when asked about backing up in this game, he said, “I wasn’t surprised. I was tired. It’s team policy that I can’t explain what’s happening.”

Maybe he has a future in public relations. But in Bryz speak, that means he’s hurt. Or, at least hurt-ing.

What unspeakable is that the Flyers will have paid Bryzgalov $21.5 million (two years’ salary plus a signing bonus) by the end of this season. He would incur a $5.66 million cap hit each season through 2019-20, yet his salary next season rises to $8 million before dropping to $6 million the next two years and down from there until contract’s end. As for Mason, eight years Bryzgalov’s junior and the 2009 Calder Trophy winner as the NHL’s rookie of the year for Columbus, he has traded a contract extension worth chump change for the challenge of giving the Flyers brass a reason to wave the amnesty flag over Bryzgalov’s head.

That his last three seasons there were rather pedestrian before ex-Flyer Sergei Bobrovsky supplanted him as starter this season? Well, was Columbus. The definition of mediocre is different there.

Mason knows he has the talent to become not only a starter again, but one that should have vast impact on games. That doesn’t just vanish, even if your development came courtesy of the Blue Jackets.

Playing behind that team for four years will leave any nice guy a little competitive around the edges.

Regardless of how well he’s getting along with the Flyers’ current No. 1 goaltender, Mason has made no secret about his wish of taking that job away from Bryzgalov, if not now than certainly later.

Mason is making $3.2 million this year with a $2.9 million cap hit, and was scheduled to become a restricted free agent in July. Clearly, the Flyers indicated a qualifying offer of 10 percent higher than his salary to keep him here another year wouldn’t fly with their current economic standing.

It’s almost as if those early Columbus achievements never happened.

If you’re noted hockey agent Anton Thun, you won’t be using that contract in any of the corporate publicity literature. But before the finalized agreement of a one-year extension at $1.5 million was announced earlier this week, Thun last week characterized his client’s move to the Flyers as “a reset,” adding that of Mason’s choice of places he’d like to play next year, Philadelphia was a preferred destination.

So that’s why he’s willing to have his salary cut in half for a year, with no guarantees beyond that?

“Whether that (qualifying offer) would have been given to me remains to be seen and that was something that I was comfortable not waiting for,” Mason said.

Apparently not. But the thought of giving the Flyers any other reason than the obvious financial ones to send Bryzgalov packing is something which seems to fall perfectly in line with Mason’s comfort plans.